Great Expectations Chapter 8 Quotes

How we cite the quotes:(Chapter.Paragraph)

Quote 1

My sister's bringing up had made me sensitive. In the little world in which children have their existence whosoever brings them up, there's nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt, as injustice. It may be only small injustice that the child can be exposed to; but the child is small, and its world is small, and its rocking-horse stands as many hands high, according to scale, as a big-boned Irish hunter. (8.95)

Pip's world may contained, small, and familiar, but, it's terrorized by his angry sister. We're pretty sure that being conscious of injustice means that you're not innocent any longer.

Quote 2

I wished Joe had been rather more genteelly brought up, and then I should have been so too. (8.92)

Yeah, well, Shmoop wishes its parents had been millionaires, too, but we all have to work with what we've got, Pip. Plus, do you really want your mom to be Miss Havisham? (Kind of a toss-up between her and Mrs. Joe, if you ask us.)

Quote 3

I took the opportunity of being alone in the court-yard, to look at my coarse hands and my common boots. (8.92)

It's like we're in the middle of a totally-against-regulations child psychology experiment. When Pip is alone, he examines the characteristics he's always possessed, but with the new frame and the new backdrop of Miss Havisham's world, these characteristics take on a whole new meaning. He becomes self-aware through his introduction to society.